For nearly three decades my hunting buddies and I have tried to plan our fall vacations around the rut. We’ve had years when our trips were scheduled a few days before the rutting action really got cranked up and we’ve had seasons when we missed the peak of the rut by a week. But when we started our marathon hunting trip in southern New York State we hit it just right when the majority of the deer we’d glassed while scouting for opening day turned out to be bucks.

“That’s a great sign,” my brother-in-law Charlie said as he looked at two bucks standing on the edge of a clover field with the binoculars. “When you see bucks cruising like this in the middle of the day you know you’ve probably hit the rut just right.”

Neither of these bucks, which both sported small four- or six-point racks, were the big one we were hoping to see from the tree stand on opening day. However, just seeing them was a positive sign that the rut was in full swing.

“Look up on that hill right there,” I said to my nephew as we watched the bucks. “That’s where we’re gonna put your tree stand......You’re gonna be hunting the lower right edge of that pine grove.”

“That’s not very far from where those bucks are,” John replied with a smile as he rubbed his hands together. “If those bucks just work up through that hardwood patch they’d be close to where my stand will be.”

I stopped the truck and took a moment to show him how the terrain created a natural pinch point that made the deer funnel toward the edge of that pine grove that we could see up on the hill.

“We’ll go up there in a couple hours and we’ll show you all the major deer trails that funnel by those pines,” Charlie told him. “We’ve been hunting that spot for 10 years or more and have rattled in a bunch of bucks and filled a ton of deer tags right there.”

As we drove around checking out a few other locations we tried to explain to my nephew that all the bucks on that hill would be cruising for does and if you stayed in your tree stand all day overlooking that funnel area eventually you’d get a chance at a good buck.

We glassed a few more deer, including a decent buck that we spotted close to the area Charlie liked to hunt, before we decided to drive up on the hill and set up our tree stands.

“Remember one thing,” I advised my nephew, “you’ve got to make sure your tree stand is as comfortable as you can make it, so you can stand to sit there from daylight to dark.”

We unloaded the stands from the truck and headed off in our own directions to get our stands set up.

I headed off to a location I’ve had success hunting for many seasons. Once there, I attached two four-foot sections of ladder on my stand and pushed it up on an ash tree that afforded me a 365-degree view of a natural pinch point between a steep bank and a softwood thicket that you can barely walk through.

With the stand in place, I wrapped the rail with a camo cover that helped conceal the stand. Then I attached a camo tree umbrella high enough on the tree so I could stand up in the stand without hitting my head while still offering me protection from the snow and rain.

Both Charlie and John made quick work of getting their stands up too.

“Are you guys happy with your stands?” I asked.

John nodded with a big grin. I’m sure he was thinking back to last season when I took him along on this same hunt when he took his first buck from a stand close to the same spot. Charlie put his stand up in a spot he’d been talking about trying for nearly 10 years. He was hopeful that moving his stand a few hundred yards from the area he’s hunted for a number of years.

It was sunny and in the 60s when we set up our tree stands, however, on opening day it poured rain the entire day. I tried rattling, I tried grunting, but with the heavy rain the deer just weren’t moving. We all managed to stay in our tree stands all day.

The following day it got cold, really cold and the wind blew hard, gusting up to 40 miles an hour. Again I tried rattling, however, with the wind blowing that hard and sleet and freezing rain falling the sounds of the antlers and grunt call didn’t carry very far.

After that a front came in bringing even colder air and heavy snow. Charlie and I stayed in our stands all day long and eventually we both saw deer from the stands.

With several inches on the ground, the snow began to taper off when I took out the rattling horns and grunt call. Every 20 minutes or so I’d rattle hard for about a minute, grunting a few times as I slapped the horns together.

After a few sequences I was looking across a wide hardwood flat when something caught my eye. As I watched through the trees I spotted a deer, then behind it was another deer sporting a tall wide rack.

I rattled lightly, however, the big buck followed the doe down the bank and with it my hopes for filling my buck tag with a wide-racked monster.

The weather during our opening weekend New York trip was awful. Nonetheless, all three of us saw deer and came close to filling our tags on that weekend.

“That was the worst weather I’ve ever hunted in,” Charlie revealed. “But we were still able to hunt all day from our tree stands.”

We’ve already made our reservation for next year’s opening weekend and even though the weather probably won’t be as bad as it was this year, we’ve already made plans to make our tree stands even more comfortable so we can stand to sit in them all day long, no matter what the weather is.